City Comptroller John Liu on a roll

City Comptroller John Liu needed less than three months in office to accomplish something that took his predecessor eight years: saying “no” to Michael Bloomberg.

By March 2010, Mr. Liu, as a board member of the city's Industrial Development Agency, had voted against the mayor's projects as many times as William Thompson did in his entire two terms as comptroller.

Since nine of the 15 board members are appointed by the mayor, the comptroller's opposition to IDA projects did not affect the outcome of the votes. But Mr. Liu's intransigence had little to do with the projects themselves. He had decided at the outset of his administration to challenge the mayor's stewardship.

“I see myself as the protector of the taxpayers' money and also the steward of the facts and figures,” Mr. Liu said last month.

Mr. Liu has cast himself as the city's watchdog, reining in a profligate mayor. He says that his “no” votes on the IDA board were intended to protect “scarce public resources”—a phrase he has used repeatedly to explain his opposition to nearly every project that has come before the board during his 15 months in office. His concern hasn't stopped him from awarding raises to his staff for the second straight year: He paid an additional $215,000 to 19 appointees, on top of $750,000 in increases last year.

Whether Mr. Liu is the fiscal guardian he says he is may matter less than being perceived as anti-Bloomberg—a stance that, given the mayor's low approval ratings, could serve him well should he decide to run for the post himself in 2013. Already, his scrappy approach distinguishes him from both his predecessor, who lost his bid against Mr. Bloomberg, and another potential candidate, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has an amiable relationship with the mayor.

Mr. Liu has focused the considerable powers of his office on two cornerstones of Mr. Bloomberg's administration: the agencies responsible for economic development and education.

Recently, Mr. Liu broadened his offensive by using his position as administrator of the city's pension funds to fight the mayor's effort to reduce benefits for the unionized workers who helped elect the comptroller. The mayor dismissed Mr. Liu's agenda.

“Last I checked, his job was to audit the city's books,” the mayor snarled last month.

Mr. Liu says that being mayor is “the last thing on my mind.” Nevertheless, he says, “We'll see what happens.”

Taiwanese-born Mr. Liu, who still lives close to where he grew up in Flushing, Queens, would be the first Asian-American to win the mayoralty and the first comptroller-turned-mayor since Abe Beame was elected in 1974. He is the first Asian-American to have been elected to a citywide office here.

The constant campaigner

Mr. Liu's official duties are to audit agencies and run the city's pension funds. But he is also in near-constant campaign mode, say current and former employees and observers.

“There's certainly more than a little Chuck Schumer in John Liu,” said Doug Muzzio, professor of public affairs at Baruch College. “He ain't shy about picking issues that give him exposure.”

In a recent interview, Mr. Liu said that his staff doesn't schedule enough for him to do. He was joking: Last year, he didn't take a day off, including weekends, until March 13.

Weekends, in fact, are just as frenetic as weekdays. On a typical Saturday—April 10, 2010—he started his day at 7 a.m. He was scheduled to lunch with gay Democrats at noon, rally with a Latino councilman at 1:30 p.m. and attend a Nepali New Year festival at 8:35 p.m.

The next day, his schedule placed him at a Baptist church in Staten Island and at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan for a Holocaust remembrance. The day's agenda included three Democratic fundraisers: one in West Harlem and two in Brooklyn.

Mr. Liu's tight schedule has become a source of friction with his staff. He is late to some events and has to cancel others “all the time,” one staffer said, angering the very constituents and local political officials he is trying to woo.

“He's trying to do too much,” the exasperated staffer said.

Making appearances is not the only way that the comptroller has attempted to raise his stature. When he first ascended from lowly Queens councilman to second in the mayoral line of succession (behind the public advocate), he required his staff, which numbers more than 700, to stand when he entered the room, and to address him as Mr. Comptroller. Mr. Comptroller backed off that policy after it was made public. Staffers say Mr. Liu travels with two police officers on his security detail, not the one who was assigned to Mr. Thompson.

Mr. Liu also has found novel ways to garner attention. In January, he announced that he would take the audit bureau “on the road” for town hall meetings in each borough, at which New Yorkers could suggest audit targets. Some praised him for engaging the public, but Bloomberg administration officials criticized the endeavor, believing that the public would focus on the most unpopular agencies rather than the ones most deserving of scrutiny. Mr. Liu plans another round of meetings by the summer.

“We can sit in this office and think we know everything about city government or know where all the problems lie,” Mr. Liu said recently from his spacious but well-worn fifth-floor suite in the Municipal Building near City Hall. “I don't believe that for a minute. I believe people in the community know far better. They have to deal with city government on a daily basis in a very personal manner.”

Taking on the mayor

Some members of the comptroller's staff, however, say the town halls are just for show.

“He's only targeting contracts the mayor wants,” a staffer said.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the first audit to come out of those meetings was an inquiry into two Department of Education technology contracts. Mr. Liu says he is focusing on that department because, with a budget of $23 billion, it represents the city's largest expense.

Mr. Liu has used nearly every vote on the IDA board, as well as a handful of audits, to protest the agency's parent organization: the city's Economic Development Corp., which he says lacks transparency. He calls the EDC “a black hole of an entity that is nearly impossible to get valuable information out of.”

“That is consistently the feedback that I've heard from my colleagues in the City Council, both when I was in the City Council and now as comptroller,” he said.

An EDC spokeswoman says the comptroller has rebuffed invitations to sit down with the staff of the agency to learn more about its operations and investments. It has complied with Mr. Liu's requests for information and will continue to do so “until 2013.”

Mr. Liu also has waded into the politically charged national debate over public-sector pensions. In March, he announced at a conference in Washington that public employees “were under attack” for their compensation packages. His office rolled out a series of policy papers “to battle rhetoric with research.”

“The rhetoric suggests that municipal and state fiscal straits are largely born of public-employee perks,” said the self-styled steward of the facts and figures. “I don't believe that to be the case.”

The policy push was plainly a counterattack against the mayor, who has been lobbying the state for reforms that would reduce the city's obligations to retirees. A subsequent report was accompanied by a peppy news release which declared that government workers are paid 17% less than their private-sector peers.

The mayor promptly pooh-poohed it.

“I have absolutely no idea where he gets those numbers,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

A tenderfoot's missteps

Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Liu is more likely to call for change publicly than to work only behind the scenes.

“If we had an issue, we'd go to the administration rather than just issue a press release or have a press conference,” said a former member of Mr. Thompson's staff.

The current comptroller's proclivity to seek publicity has at times hurt him.

On the day in February 2010 when former Gov. David Paterson announced that he would not seek election—his interference in an aide's domestic dispute having came to light—the comptroller called for Mr. Paterson's resignation. The demand shocked and angered the black political establishment. Mr. Liu had been endorsed by the New York Amsterdam News and was thought to have won his post with African-American support.

Mr. Liu made his decision after meeting with his political advisers, but without consulting anyone in the black community, said Curtis Simmons, a former press aide to Mr. Thompson who worked for Mr. Liu at the time. Mr. Simmons is now the executive editor of the Amsterdam News.

“It was an act of a political novice, of someone who didn't really understand the dynamics and the role that David Paterson has and does play in the black community,” Mr. Simmons said. “He did not have a real connection with the black political leadership. So the calls that should have been made, he didn't make.”

A current employee says that Mr. Liu has tried to cultivate relationships with black political leaders—in part by hiring former staffers of black politicians Rep. Edolphus Towns and state Sen. Kevin Parker, who lost chairmanships and had to trim their payrolls.

Victories, or opportunism?

Mr. Liu says his collaborations with the mayor have been ignored by the press. As an example, he notes, he and the mayor negotiated a behind-the-scenes agreement to allow the long-overdue CityTime project to be completed. But the deal came only after Mr. Liu, along with union and City Council critics, publicly attacked the mayor for repeatedly green-lighting the $738 million employee timekeeping system and the city's use of $200-an-hour contractors.

In fact, Mr. Liu's opposition to the contract because of cost overruns and endless delays proved serendipitous when quality-assurance contractors were eventually arrested for allegedly defrauding the city of $80 million.

Similarly, the Bloomberg administration's decision in March to reduce spending on outside contractors affirmed Mr. Liu's criticism that the city was overly reliant on high-paid consultants.

Mr. Liu says his office's insistence has forced the city to restructure 16 contracts over 14 months, saving $400 million. For instance, taking aim at a bloated contract to upgrade a Bronx 911 call center, he pressured the city to reduce costs by $100 million.

The comptroller's adversarial approach has at times come off as arrogant. One observer in the business community says it's driven by a need for attention. That reputation has lent even Mr. Liu's most straightforward, routine activities—such as auditing city agencies—a political patina that undercuts his position as independent arbiter of the city's finances.

“I bristle when people accuse me of playing politics,” Mr. Liu said.

He recently began voting “yes” on some IDA projects—citing a new contract with the city, which, he said, “created a better pipeline from which to get information.” But backing the mayor remains a rarity.

“I'm not here to make the mayor miserable,” he said. “But I was not elected to be a rubber stamp.”

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